


Day 10 - There's Just Something About Her

by ScullyLovesQueequeg



Series: Fictober 2019 [9]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Complete, Ficlet, Gen, Season/Series 03, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScullyLovesQueequeg/pseuds/ScullyLovesQueequeg
Summary: Mulder's in therapy, after the events of Anasazi.





	Day 10 - There's Just Something About Her

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to leave a quick thank you to William, my former therapist. You really saved my life. Thank you.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Mulder leaned forward in his seat and covered his face with his hands, glancing at the shag carpeting through the spaces between his fingers.

“Yeah, because I attacked Skinner back in March,” He responded, and the doctor jot down some notes. Mulder let out a sigh, though, of exasperation or impatience, it was hard to say.

“Right, and you were also under the effects of a psychotropic drug,” The doctor said. Mulder glanced off to the side but shifted back into his seat. “ Why did you do it?”

“Because… I was just angry, I guess. I don’t know, I hardly remember honestly. I said I was sorry…” Mulder answered, his tone reminiscent of a child who had been caught lying. Mulder’s eyes remained on his hands, specifically his wrists. He caught sight of a hair trapped between the joints in the band of his wristwatch. He did not remove it.

“Yes, but we still have to examine you to make sure you’re cleared for duty. Now, according to reports, you had been acting violent and erratic all weekend. Your partner had to shoot you in the shoulder to keep you from killing another man. Can you tell us why you were trying to kill this other man?”

“He killed my father and got away with it,” Mulder spat, his shoulder aching at the memory. The doctor wrote this down too. Mulder felt more and more like it was a waste of his time. “I don’t want to talk about what happened out in the desert honestly. Just more lies.”

“OK, why don’t we talk about your partner then? It says here you’ve been working with Agent Scully for about 2 years…”

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Mulder said, as he shifted in his seat listlessly. It felt longer, like he had known her his whole life, like she had always been there by his side, but it had really not been long at all.

“Something happened to her though, didn’t it?”

“She was abducted and brought back,” Mulder answered, without looking up. He kept his eyes on the carpet and shifted forward this time so that he was leaning forward, and his arms were resting in his lap. He let his hands dangle in the space between his lap, but refused the eye contact that the doctor had been trying to make.

“But you don’t sound happy about having her back..?” The doctor said, and finally, Mulder granted her the eye contact that she had been seeking. She gave Mulder a small, encouraging smile.

“I don’t like what was done to her. I don’t really know what was done to her, just that it wasn’t good. But no, I’m happy she’s back, I—,” Mulder paused, looking rattled suddenly like he had revealed too much, and he broke the eye contact and let his gaze drop to the floor.

“What’s the matter?”

“No, I… she’s just important to the work I do. The work we do,” He corrected himself. “I didn’t mean to imply anything else.”

The doctor studied his body language and how he had gone from aloof to engaged, and distant, in the span of a minute. He was hiding something.

“You seem unsure about something, did something happen between you two?”

Mulder let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“I… I’m afraid of losing her again, that’s all. She’s not just important to the work, she’s… she’s important to me. There’s just something about her. Her mother… her mother said that nothing like that had ever really happened to her before. I just didn’t realize at the time how… how close to death she had been. We almost had to pull the plug on her,” Mulder said, as if recalling from memory.

“Was that what her family wanted?”

“No, but Scully had… a while back, after a particular case we were on, she decided that she didn’t want to be kept on life support if something like that happened. I was her witness. At the time, it was just something I did to ease her fears but it’s been a source of mine ever since,” Mulder elaborated. The doctor jot down some notes, but was intrigued; Mulder had not been open with her and now, in regards to his partner, he opened up a little.

“It sounds like you care about her a lot. Do you think she feels the same?”

“No. —no, that’s not… what I mean to say is that I care more about her than she cares about me, I think. I… kind of knew it early on. Our second case together was a military installation—an Air Force base. Some stoners said they’d seen lights in the sky and other wild things. Scully was waiting in the car for me and when the lights started up, I brought her with me to see. It was just me and Scully standing on this hill, watching the lights dance in the sky, and I glanced over at her, to see what her reaction was and… I don’t know,” Mulder stood up and began to pace.

“What did she look like?”

“Like she had never seen anything like that before. There was a sense of wonder and… I don’t know, I was just surprised. I even remember thinking, I would do anything to keep her feeling that sense of delight and surprise. That wonder. I wanted to make her question everything. Every case after that, I just wanted to surprise her, to get her to smile like that again, but the next time I did… it wasn’t even a case that got her. I… I was badly hurt. My father had just died and… everyone thought I was dead. So when I kicked down the door to my own apartment, I surprised her and Skinner. When we were leaving, she gave _me_ that look.”

Mulder paused and slowed his pacing across the floor as he rubbed his hands. He felt jittery and nervous. He had all but confessed his feelings for his partner, to a stranger. _Great job._

“It sounds like you might be in love,” The doctor suggested. Mulder’s pace came to a complete halt, and he glanced over at the doctor as if seeing her in a new light.

“…I guess you could say that. I didn’t think of it that way. It doesn’t change anything, though, and it’s irrelevant to whether I’m fit to remain on the job.” Mulder replied with a shrug.

“That’s true, but it’s clearly important to you. We still have a few minutes left. We can talk about it if you want. Or anything else. Do you still feel angry?”

“No, just… lost, I guess. That’s really all, but who doesn’t feel that way? Everyone’s a little lost sometimes,” Mulder said, with a shrug. The doctor reached over to her desk and wrote down a name and a number on the back of her own business card.

“Well, I’m not going to hold you any longer, then. This is my colleague. If you think that you need someone to talk to, he’s very good at what he does. And it’s a private practice. I’m obligated to report back but he isn’t. I hope that you reach out to him, Agent Mulder.”

Mulder took the card and turned it over, pondering over the nearly illegible handwriting.


End file.
